Abortion Rights Research Articles

The Impact of Socioeconomic Status Differences on Women's Abortion Rights in the United States

This paper attempts to address the abortion dilemma faced by women of different social statuses after Roe v. Wade. This paper argues that socioeconomic status can influence the impact of abortion on women. Socioeconomic status differences in medical protection and, family and social status all affect a woman's willingness to have an abortion and her ability to choose one. Although the law cannot guarantee reproductive justice for low SES women, this paper suggests that investing in the education of low SES women, including sex education and health education, to build human capital for them can achieve their abortion rights in the long run. In addition, the paper argues that more investment in education for women may also lead to a difference in economic level.

Relating to foetal persons: why women's Voices come first and last, but not alone in Abortion debates.

Abortion remains a controversial topic, with pro-life and pro-choice advocates clashing fiercely. However, public polling demonstrates that the vast majority of the Western public holds a middle position: being in favour of abortion but not in all circumstances nor at any time. The intuitions held by the majority seem to imply a contradiction: two early foetuses at the same point in development have different moral statuses. Providing coherent philosophical grounding for this intuition has proved challenging. Solutions given by philosophers such as Feinberg, Harman and Räsänen are complex and do not fully account for the lived experience of pregnancy loss. This article argues for a relational ontological construction of human personhood as the basis of foetal personhood. This approach takes seriously the literature of pregnancy loss and the lived experiences of pregnant persons. Focusing on the manner in which persons relate to early foetuses (especially pregnant persons), provides a coherent ground for distinct foetal value. Importantly, this approach is both simple and intuitive. Therefore, it can be more easily adopted by middle. To counter an implied equality of human relationality, the article argues for a clear hierarchy based on relational proximity that affirms pregnant persons? primary role in deciding the moral significance of foetal termination.

The association between reproductive rights and access to abortion services and mental health among US women

BackgroundThis study examines whether living in US states with (1) restrictive reproductive rights and (2) restrictive abortion laws is associated with frequent mental health distress among women. MethodsWe operationalize reproductive rights using an overall state-level measure of reproductive rights as well as a state-level measure of restrictive abortion laws. We merged data from the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) with these state-level exposure variables and other state-level information. We used multilevel logistic regression to assess the relationship between these two measures and the likelihood of reporting 14 or more days of frequent mental health distress. We also tested whether associations differed across race, household income, education, and marital status. ResultsIn the adjusted models, a standard deviation-unit increase in the reproductive rights score was significantly associated with decreased odds of reporting frequent mental health distress (OR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.91, 0.99). Women in states with very hostile abortion restrictions had higher odds of frequent mental health distress. Associations between state-level abortion restrictions were larger among women 25–34 years old and women with a high school degree. For example, women aged 25–34 years residing in moderate (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.14, 2.04), hostile (OR = 1.59, 95% CI = 1.15, 2.18), and very hostile (OR = 1.29, 95% CI = 1.02, 1.64) states were more likely to report frequent mental health distress than women living in states with less restrictive abortion policies. ConclusionWe found the association between state-level restrictions on reproductive rights and abortion access and frequent mental health distress differed by age and socioeconomic status. These results suggest abortion rights restrictions may contribute to mental health inequities among women.

Fairness, Care, and Abortion

ABSTRACTOnly women can bear the burdens of gestating fetuses. That fact, I suggest, bears on the morality of abortion. To illustrate and explain this point, I frame my discussion around Judith Jarvis Thomson's classic defense of abortion and Gina Schouten's recent feminist challenge to Thomson's defense. Thomson argued that, even assuming that fetuses are morally equivalent to persons, abortions are typically morally permissible. According to Schouten's feminist challenge to Thomson, however, if fetuses are morally equivalent to persons, then abortions are typically morally impermissible because there is a collective moral obligation to care for the vulnerable. The consideration that is my topic, however, poses a problem for that feminist challenge to Thomson. There is reason to believe, I argue, that it is unfair that only women can bear the burdens of gestating fetuses. And, if that is unfair, it would undermine that feminist challenge to Thomson. I show, in other words, that there is a plausible and well‐motivated basis for believing that, even if fetuses are morally equivalent to persons and there is a collective obligation to care for the vulnerable, then abortions are nevertheless typically morally permissible. That is how fairness bears on the morality of abortion.

More on the Relevance of Personhood and Mindedness: The Euthanasia Debate

In my first paper for SHERM, I argued that “fetus personhood” is irrelevant to the abortion debate. In this paper, I will argue that personhood is irrelevant to the euthanasia debate as well. Even though a terminally ill patient is a person, ending their life can still be moral. Because personhood (and mindedness) is only instrumentally valuable as means to attaining the good life, if a terminal illness has now made that impossible, it is permissible (when both the doctor and patient agree) for the doctor to help the patient end their life. Thus, euthanasia should be legal.

Lawful Sins: Abortion Rights and Reproductive Governance in Mexico

Lawful Sins examines the provisioning of and social attitudes toward legal abortion (interrupción legal del embarazo in Spanish, or ILE) in Mexico City after a 2007 reform decriminalized the procedure in the capital up to 12 weeks in pregnancy. Through ethnographic interviews and informal conversations at two ILE clinics carried out approximately seven years after the reform's passage, Singer explores patients' and clinicians' perspectives toward abortion and other reproductive phenomena, as well as the “dynamics of care” in the clinics, which the author argues “were central to the instantiation of abortion rights there” (p. 27). Singer also examines a few organizations providing abortion care to women in other regions of Mexico, either by facilitating women's travel to the capital or by assisting them in managing medical abortions at home.Lawful Sins forms part of a growing body of literature that highlights the failure of rights-based frameworks to resolve several key ambiguities surrounding abortion, including women's and clinicians' conceptualizations of the procedure, the chasm between publicly stated attitudes on and private experiences with abortion, and the processes through which women make decisions about their pregnancies. As in Bolivia (and elsewhere in Latin America), few individuals with whom Singer spoke unequivocally supported women's right to abortion under all circumstances. Most instead emphasized that some women (i.e., survivors of rape) “deserved” access to abortion more than others (i.e., women who had terminated more than one pregnancy). Clinicians with whom Singer spoke also emphasized the medical, psychic, and social “risks” of abortion and conceptualized their own role as “protect[ing] the Mexican family” by preventing repeat abortions, encouraging women to use contraception, and impressing on them their “responsibilities” as women and mothers (pp. 141, 148). As in other Latin American contexts, Singer also finds that neither legal reform nor rights-based advocacy has resolved the unequal nature of abortion care in Mexico. The mostly poor women living in the capital able to access the ILE system find the experience emotionally and logistically taxing, while wealthier women may opt out of the process altogether by visiting private clinics to secure abortions. Meanwhile, women living outside the capital or unable to navigate the hurdles of the ILE system manage their own abortions, either by purchasing medications over the counter or by employing some other strategy.As Singer notes, Lawful Sins emerges at an opportune—and in some contexts, distressing—time in the landscape of global abortion laws and realities. Published shortly before the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Singer references the “circular patterns of abortion travel” made by women on both sides of the United States–Mexico border over the last several decades—patterns again on the rise in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision (p. 7). Following Mexico City's 2007 reform, other Mexican states initially tightened abortion restrictions before several moved to liberalize access to the procedure in the last few years. Concurrently, as Singer shows, activists have stepped in to fill gaps in care left by a shifting legal landscape, employing both legal and extralegal means—a pattern also evident elsewhere in the region.A central contribution of Singer's book is the clear window it provides into the everyday goings-on inside Mexico City's ILE clinics. The reader gets a vivid sense of clinicians' and patients' experiences at clinics, as well as the infrastructural problems that make abortion difficult to provide and to access, including resource shortages, long wait times, limited appointments, and challenging commutes. Singer's investigation into the meanings of Catholicism to the individuals with whom she speaks is also enlightening. While secular readers may be tempted to chalk up some Catholics' willingness to procure abortion to hypocrisy, Singer thoughtfully unpacks patients' and clinicians' nuanced views on questions of faith, which include critiques of the church as an institution and beliefs about the importance of an individual relationship with God.On the other hand, Singer poses, I would argue, a somewhat false dichotomy with respect to the way that abortion is viewed in Mexico versus the United States, presenting the abortion debate in the latter as “focused overwhelmingly on the ontological status of the fetus” rather than reflecting broader efforts to control women in the face of threats posed by political and social change (p. 36). The ambiguity that Singer identifies in patients' and doctors' attitudes toward women who seek abortion in Mexico City, for instance, is also present in clinics to the north (if not necessarily in the one Midwest facility where the author worked). Finally, while Lawful Sins presents a view of abortion that is firmly grounded in Mexico's history and culture, the book provides less insight into how Mexico's reproductive history compares with those of other countries in the region, which were similarly marked by patterns of religious contradiction and moral ambiguity, as well as shifting concerns about eugenics and overpopulation.

“Make All the Laws You Want”: The Catholic Left against Legal Liberalism, circa 1968

AbstractHow has American Catholicism interacted with American legal culture? Legal scholars have often examined this question in the context of contraception and abortion debates. This article focuses instead on the so-called Catholic left that emerged in protest against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, and thereby seeks to bring the rich history of Catholic radicalism and peace activism into closer conversation with legal history. Drawing on both primary sources and a rich body of secondary literature in religious and social history that legal scholarship has not fully incorporated, the author examines ideas about law within the writings of Catholic left figures, including writer-monk Thomas Merton, sociologist-priest Paul Hanly Furfey, and activist-priest Berrigan brothers. Building on work by religious historians who have interpreted the Catholic radical tradition as a distinctive response to the limitations of political liberalism, this author emphasizes that the Catholic left also expressed a profound alienation from legal liberalism, with its veneration of lawyers and its faith in courts as sites of social progress. Revisiting the Catholic left through the lens of legal history raises questions for future research about the possible connections between leftist antiliberalism and the more familiar Catholic tradition of conservative illiberalism.

Alias Grace; Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture; Abortion Politics; Mothering Rhetorics

Alias Grace; Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture; Abortion Politics; Mothering Rhetorics

International Human Rights: A Survey by Cher Weixia Chen & Alison Dundes Renteln

Reviewed by: International Human Rights: A Survey by Cher Weixia Chen & Alison Dundes Renteln Siobhán McInerney-Lankford (bio) Cher Weixia Chen & Alison Dundes Renteln, International Human Rights: A Survey (Cambridge University Press 2022), ISBN 9781108484865, 590 pages. The term “tour de force” is overused, but in the case of Chen and Renteln’s International Human Rights: A Survey, it is an entirely appropriate description of the work. The book delivers on its title: it provides an incisive and thoroughly modern account of international human rights today. It is an impressive work in both its breadth and depth, charting the outer boundaries of international human rights with respect to both what is covered, how it is enforced, and the manner in which it is studied. It offers a comprehensive resource on all aspects of the international human rights framework, covering substantive, procedural, and cultural perspectives. It is remarkable both in the detail and analytical rigor it brings to the subject, tackling the normative architecture, the contextual dimensions, and the cultural complexities and controversies, as well as a thoroughgoing analysis of the institutions, processes, and actors whose purpose is to uphold and enforce human rights law. The Survey draws from a broad range of regional contexts and considers legal provisions and practice at the international, regional, domestic, and local levels. Although clearly motivated by a deep commitment to human rights, Chen and Renteln’s work doesn’t read as pure advocacy. It is written in a sophisticated yet accessible style and handles controversial issues with sensitivity and subtlety. It maintains a tone that is critical while remaining balanced and steadfastly hopeful. In terms of methodological approach, it goes beyond the standard legal analysis of human rights, to embrace perspectives from other disciplines, including moral philosophy, history, anthropology, and sociology. While clearly rooted in the normative foundations of international human rights and providing a thorough analysis of international human rights law, it adopts a confident interdisciplinary approach. This is particularly welcome since human rights legal scholarship has [End Page 342] been critiqued for being insufficiently concerned with methodology, metrics, and impacts. The Survey appears at a crucial time when the COVID-19 pandemic has created new and compounded vulnerabilities for many groups and when the international rule of law—upon which human rights depends—is under sustained threat, particularly with the ongoing war in Ukraine. In these respects, it both captures the Zeitgeist of international human rights, reflecting on its most profound challenges, as well as its most important contributions. A unique feature of international human rights law as a special regime of public international law is that it introduces legal obligations that operate both horizontally (between states parties) and vertically (between the state party and its citizens). That vertical application introduces a particular type of legal accountability between states parties as duty-bearers and citizens as rights-holders. That feature permits international scrutiny of the behavior of states towards their citizens and of the relationship between a sovereign and its subjects; this forms the foundation of international human rights accountability. The quest for that accountability pervades Chen and Renteln’s work, which underscores the central importance of human rights accountability of all actors: states, non-state actors, international organizations, and private sector actors. It also describes the diversity of issues subject to human rights accountability today and the increasingly varied constituencies that now claim their rights and demand respect and protection. Human rights accountability requires the mediation of a perennial tension between the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity on the one hand, and the respect, protection, promotion, and fulfillment of human rights on the other. This is a recurring theme that the book addresses effectively through its conceptual and substantive chapters. In addition to tackling some of today’s most contentious human rights issues such as racism, abortion and reproductive rights, female genital mutilation, and head coverings and honor killings, the Survey takes on broader challenges facing international human rights law, including those related to ethics, culture, and politics, as well as interpretative and enforcement challenges. The Survey begins with an analysis of the philosophical foundations of international human rights law (IHRL), analyzing the historical background, political traditions, and normative...

Feminisme dan Keadilan Reproduktif: Mempersoalkan Aborsi Berdasarkan Pengalaman Aktivisme HKSR

In Indonesia, abortion is categorized as an illegal and criminal act. Even though abortion due to medical indications and rape are exempt from criminal status, access to legal abortion is still almost impossible. Therefore, discussion about legal abortion and safe abortion cannot be done separately, for the criminalization of abortion is one of the factors behind unsafe abortions. Through focused discussions with 20 women activists representing civil society organizations who advocate for gender justice and SRHR in Indonesia, this research aims to document and reflect critically on the situation of reproductive injustice in the issue of abortion in Indonesia using a feminist lens. Building this research within the framework of reproductive justice thinking based on feminist praxis, we selected women activists as our informants. SRHR activists are the closest to and the most involved subjects in the feminist praxis of promoting reproductive justice, particularly on the issue of abortion

Trends in Abortion- and Contraception-Related Internet Searches After the US Supreme Court Overturned Constitutional Abortion Rights

The US Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022, revealed immediate and distinct differences between states regarding abortion legality. Whether the ruling was associated with population-level changes in seeking information on reproductive health care-related information is unknown. To determine whether the US Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization was associated with increased information seeking for reproductive health care access in the states with immediately effective (trigger and pre-Roe) abortion laws vs other states. This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of nationwide real-time internet search data by state-week from January 1, 2021, through July 16, 2022. Difference-in-difference event study estimates were used to evaluate abortion- and contraception-related internet searches after the Supreme Court draft majority decision was leaked on May 2, 2022, and the final ruling was issued on June 24, 2022, in states immediately affected vs other states. Data analyses were performed from July 18 to January 14, 2022. The Supreme Court's draft majority decision leaked on May 2, 2022, and the final ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. Preexisting state trigger laws and pre-Roe bans that became effective immediately when Roe was overturned by the decision on Dobbs. Number of searches per 10 million Google queries in a state-week for terms related to abortion or contraception. Searches for abortion-related terms increased from 16 302 to 75 746 per 10 million searches per state-week during the weeks before vs after the May 2, 2022, leak of the draft majority decision in states with trigger laws or abortion bans. This was a 42% (95% CI, 24%-59%) higher increase than in states with laws that protect abortion access. Searches for contraception also increased from 56 055 to 82 133 searches per state-week after the ruling in the states with abortion bans, 25% (95% CI, 13%-36%) higher than the increase in states protecting abortion access. The findings of this retrospective cross-sectional study suggest that changes in internet searching for terms related to reproductive health care can capture immediate population-level changes in information-seeking behavior regarding reproductive health care access. These data are critical for shaping health policy discussions.

Women with substance use disorders are highly impacted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade: Advocacy steps are urgently needed

The Supreme Court's ruling to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade verdict represents a major setback for women's reproductive freedoms in the United States. This ruling revokes constitutional protection for abortion rights and returns the decision to the states. Since this ruling in June 2022, numerous states have adopted total or near total abortion bans, with many of these bans offering no exception for rape, incest, or nonfatal maternal health risks. Legal experts also warn that this ruling can open the door to restrict contraceptive rights previously protected under the same implied constitutional right to privacy as abortion. Already, this decision has increased momentum for states to place restrictions on specific forms of contraception. Certain groups of women will be disproportionately harmed by these bans, such as women with substance use disorders (SUDs). Women with SUDs face unique barriers to sexual and reproductive health services that exist at the structural level (e.g., criminalization; costs and accessibility), interpersonal level (e.g., higher rates of intimate partner violence) and individual level (e.g., reduced reproductive autonomy). These synergistic barriers interact to produce lower contraceptive use, increased unintended pregnancy rates, and subsequently a greater need for abortion services among this population. This ruling will exacerbate the effects of these barriers on women with SUDs, resulting in even greater difficulties accessing contraceptive and abortion services, and ultimately increasing rates of criminalization among pregnant and parenting women with SUDs. This commentary describes these barriers and highlights potential advocacy steps that are urgently needed to assist reproductive-aged women with SUDs during these challenging times when essential health services are increasingly inaccessible.

The socio-pragmatic analysis of Amharic Euphemisms of women

This study investigated the socio-pragmatic analysis of Amharic euphemisms of women within the frameworks of politeness and relevance theories. The investigation was carried out using a descriptive-qualitative methodology. To accomplish the objective, data were gathered from Amharic native speakers using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion, and introspection. Hence, using snowball and purposive sampling techniques, informants of elders and youths, males and females, educated and uneducated, urban and rural residences were chosen. The data were analyzed based on the research objectives. Results show that native Amharic speakers believed that it was improper to discuss women’s issues in public, including virginity, pregnancy, menstruation, delivery, abortion, menopause, wife, concubine, and prostitute, at the research areas’ churches, mosques, homes, schools, and hospital realms. Instead, they employed different euphemistic construction mechanisms. In addition, people in the study settings used various euphemistic construction techniques including metaphor, metonymy, idiom, borrowing, circumlocution, overstatement, and understatement. The results also show that research participants in the study locations used a variety of euphemistic formation strategies to avoid taboo utterances, to maintain face, and to demonstrate respect.

The Business of Birth Control: Contraception and Commerce in Britain before the Sexual Revolution, Claire L. JonesContraception: A Concise History, Donna J. Drucker

With the collapse of abortion rights in the United States, the right to legal contraception may not be far behind. In his concurrent opinion in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell” as the Court has a “duty to correct the error.” While the latter two cases deal with the invalidation of sodomy law and the right to same-sex marriage, Griswold was the case that legalized birth control for married couples in 1965 under the right to privacy. The case paved the way for Roe v. Wade and is yet another indicator of why the history of birth control is inextricable from the history of abortion. Continued research into the historical and sociological aspects of contraception is now more vital than ever to help us understand the legal and medical context of potential bans, and historians Claire L. Jones and Donna J. Drucker give us two excellent new books to consider.

Protecting and Advancing Women's Health and Rights Post-Roe Era Through Policy.

Since federal legalization in 1973, abortion has become a safe and popular option for those who desire to terminate a pregnancy. However, the Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022 clearly outlined a national divide that shifted abortion rights in the hands of state legislatures. This shift in legislative power will unveil major systematic flaws and further exacerbate health inequalities among underserved populations. However, legislatures can mitigate the disruption by addressing current infrastructural gaps that will make a positive lasting impact on women's health. Legislatures should investigate the gaps within the current telehealth guidelines and interstate compact agreements that may lead to a lack of clarity and legality with a shift to state power for abortive services that may prevent abortive service distribution entirely. In addition, Graduate Medical Education Accreditation Councils and state legislatures have the opportunity to blunt the abortion provider shortage that is expected to increase with state power through expansion of family medicine residency programs curriculum and health Advanced Practice Clinicians licensure. Finally, implementation of comprehensive sexual education has shown to promote sexual health and decrease risk factors associated with utilization of abortive service and could be utilized as a preventive measure for future generations. By promptly addressing current infrastructural gaps, legislatures will be on the forefront of the challenges brought by prompt systemic change in the abortion infrastructure.

EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY OF CRIMINALISING MATERNAL SUBSTANCE ABUSE IN SOUTH AFRICA

With alcohol abuse by pregnant women being a significant problem in South Africa, particularly in the rural areas of the Western Cape province, the country carries one of the world’s heaviest burdens of foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). FAS is regarded as the most severe of the foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. A child affected by FAS may suffer various developmental delays, including behavioural problems, poor language and fine motor skills, overall poor academic performance, mental retardation, and an increased tendency towards aggression and violence. Despite the alarming extent of the problem, maternal substance abuse is not currently a criminal offence in South Africa. This article explores the feasibility of criminalising maternal substance abuse, either by way of an amendment to the Children’s Act 38 of 2005 or by introducing a new statutory offence. As South African children are already afforded protection against abuse and neglect in terms of the Children’s Act, the prosecution of mothers who abuse substances while pregnant and then give birth to children suffering FAS-related harm could potentially also occur within this ambit. This would require an extension to the definitions of abuse and neglect in the Children’s Act and would have no effect on the legal status of a foetus in South Africa. Yet one would face certain challenges associated with the principle of legality: in terms of the ius strictum requirement, for instance, courts are expected to apply a strict rather than a broad interpretation to the definition of a crime. Therefore, if it is not provided for clearly enough in the definition of abuse and neglect, courts may be hesitant to include maternal substance abuse in their understanding of these crimes. Moreover, a strict interpretation of the meaning of “child” in the Children’s Act would exclude a foetus. In addition, a foetus does not possess legal subjectivity under South African law, which means that it generally does not have any legal rights, nor can it be the victim of any crime. Alternatively, the legislature could opt for introducing a new statutory offence to address maternal substance abuse separately. In this regard, criminalising maternal substance abuse as a materially-defined crime would be the best route to follow. This would restrict prosecution to instances where maternal substance abuse does in fact result in FAS-like effects in the child upon birth. In determining the feasibility of criminalising maternal substance abuse in South Africa, the article also takes a comparative look at United States law in this regard, particularly the position in Alabama and South Carolina. Developments in these states do seem to bode well for a decision to criminalise maternal substance abuse in South Africa as well. As shown in Hicks v State of Alabama 2014 153 So.3d 53 and Whitner v State 328 S.C. 1, 492 S.E.2d 777 (1997), maternal substance abusers in the United States may be prosecuted for either a specific statutory offence or general child neglect. However, while the courts in those cases imposed imprisonment, South Africa’s already overcrowded prisons coupled with the predominantly socio-economic causes of maternal substance abuse in the local context would warrant alternative sentencing options. These include referral to a rehabilitation centre or diversion. In addition, the United States courts seem to have accepted the view that foetuses should be afforded the same protection as children. As this would stir up a hornet’s nest in terms of the abortion debate and the legal status of a foetus in South Africa, following the American example in this respect is not recommended. However, this challenge can be overcome by criminalising maternal substance abuse as suggested above, by providing for prosecution only where the affected child is born alive and presents with FAS-like symptoms.

Theoretical Reviewing Of Overlapping Consensus In The Context Of Abortion Debate

Since the beginning of the late modern era, modern constitutions have been trying to keep both group
 rights as minority rights and individual rights. But, in some cases, it is still ambiguous if an action or a
 phenomenon must refer to individual rights or group rights. Abortion discussions, with regard to political
 rights, are one example of these ambiguous cases. In this context, whereas Liberal view tends to regard
 abortion as individual rights of a woman, Communitarian view can be against it by pointing out the right
 to life and this case may lead to a kind of liberal constitutional crises. This article gains importance as such
 constitutional crises still emerge even nowadays. John Rawls’s theory of overlapping consensus in Political
 Liberalism tries to solve these political conflicts that emerged in liberal constitutions by prioritizing public
 reason. This article conceptionally aims to examine Rawls’s theory in terms of prioritization and value
 relativity in abortion discussions. The method of article is hermeneutics. In order to extend the universe of
 the discussion, some important thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Isaiah Berlin and John Gray, who have
 related studies on the topic, were included. In conclusion, it is asserted that Rawl’s theory is weak both
 practically and theoretically as to the principle of utilitarianism violates the rights of communitarians.

Christian Conservatism as Seen in Florida’s Faith-Based Prisons and the U.S. Debate on Abortion

The Experiment presents scholars of religion with an opportunity to draw upon their training to reflect upon a contemporary issue. In this edition, Emma Welch engages with Brad Stoddard’s newly released book Spiritual Entrepreneurs: Florida’s Faith-Based Prisons and the American Carceral State (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). Stoddard’s volume examines Florida’s Faith- and Character-Based Institutions (FCBIs) as sites illustrative of the collision of the politics of incarceration, neoliberal economics, and religious freedom in the United States. Drawing from Stoddard’s argument, Emma Welch considers how a similar convergence of U.S. conservative Christian values and political agendas occur around the issue of abortion.

Teaching ethics in a technology regulation module: exploring the pedagogical method

ABSTRACT Technology and regulation exert significant impacts on business decision-making; as such, technology law has become an indispensable part of business education. The ethical components embedded in technology regulation modules are designed to equip future business professionals with fundamental values and rules that both guide and facilitate their decision-making. However, owing to the interdisciplinary nature of such a module and because it is frequently offered as a service module, unique instructional challenges arise. This paper identifies problem-based learning (PBL) as the main suitable pedagogical method for teaching ethical content in such a module, supplemented by scenario-based learning (SBL), because they effectively contextualise the relevant module content, create an environment that simulates real-life scenarios where moral dilemmas reside, and contribute to the module learning outcome in fostering a sustainability competency in students. Through a theoretical discussion based on concrete examples (a bitcoin transaction’s ethical issues in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) context and ethical dilemmas related to abortion rights), this paper aims to guide future studies on how to deliver ethical content within a technology law module.

Moralization and extremism robustly amplify myside sharing.

We explored whether moralization and attitude extremity may amplify a preference to share politically congruent ("myside") partisan news and what types of targeted interventions may reduce this tendency. Across 12 online experiments (N = 6,989), we examined decisions to share news touching on the divisive issues of gun control, abortion, gender and racial equality, and immigration. Myside sharing was systematically observed and was consistently amplified when participants (i) moralized and (ii) were attitudinally extreme on the issue. The amplification of myside sharing by moralization also frequently occurred above and beyond that of attitude extremity. These effects generalized to both true and fake partisan news. We then examined a number of interventions meant to curb myside sharing by manipulating (i) the audience to which people imagined sharing partisan news (political friends vs. foes), (ii) the anonymity of the account used (anonymous vs. personal), (iii) a message warning against the myside bias, and (iv) a message warning against the reputational costs of sharing "mysided" fake news coupled with an interactive rating task. While some of those manipulations slightly decreased sharing in general and/or the size of myside sharing, the amplification of myside sharing by moral attitudes was consistently robust to these interventions. Our findings regarding the robust exaggeration of selective communication by morality and extremism offer important insights into belief polarization and the spread of partisan and false information online.